The hand has rather been open

AS THE student protests have become more widespread and violent, so the government has sought to discredit them.

Hence the emergence and publicity of the conspiratorial phrase “hidden hand”. Like most conspiracy theories, however, this has a contradiction at its core.

If the hand is genuinely hidden, then it cannot be identified, let alone prosecuted and punished.

In fact, most of the perpetrators of violence and attempted saboteurs of students’ rights to write exams have not been hidden but defiantly open in their intentions. Playing to the cameras is part of the protest. The invasion of the UCT Council meeting was televised. Recently, the vice-chancellor was physically attacked in full view of the Senate .

“Hidden hand” has, of course, resonances of the infamous “Third Force” operating in the later 1980s and early 1990s. By contrast, the formulation of the “invisible hand” by the famous economist Adam Smith in 1776 refers to the changing of market forces by multitudes of investors seeking different outcomes. Smith’s hand is genuinely “invisible” because it refers metaphorically to the operation of the free market. Of course, this does not mean that individual shares or sectors of the market cannot be manipulated.

Geoff Hughes is an emeritus professor, at Wits University.